Page 40 of The Scientist
“Yes! He was looking down at his phone, so I hightailed it out of there before he spotted me.”
“So you ditched him?” Sarah asked.
“You bet your ass I did. Daddy can’t afford a lawsuit. I’m still paying off those Julliard loans from way back when I was going to be the next Baryshnikov,” he said, pointing his nose in the air. “All that got me was a couple hundred grand in debt… that and really great calves.”
“How did you not recognize him before that?” I asked.
“His profile was a shirtless pic. I didn’t pay much attention past his pecs. I knew those biceps looked familiar though...”
Sarah shook her head. “Why am I not surprised?”
Lionel responded by flipping her the bird.
“Also, how did he not recognize his own teacher?” I asked. “Didn’t you have your picture on there?”
He grinned sheepishly. “I may have put aslightlyolder photo on there.”
“How much older?” Sarah asked, her eyes narrowing.
“Let’s just say we both had our most recent college photos as our profile pictures.”
Sarah made atsk-tsknoise. “Patti would be ashamed.”
“Patti got me into this mess in the first place. I should have just stuck with Queeries.”
“You’re still on Queeries? Isn’t that the app that lets you give your date a bedroom rating afterward?”
“Yes,” he answered, taking a sip of his coffee. “But I never pass up an opportunity to hurt my own feelings.”
“Why won’t you let me set you up with my friend, Mitch?” she asked.
“Because if I go on one more terrible blind date, I’ll be headed for a grippy sock vacation,” he said to her. “Besides, you lost your setting-up privileges with baby-talk Mike.”
“Mike’s not that bad,” she said without any conviction behind it.
“I showed you the text messages. Are you going to deny that you saw the words ‘sowwy’ and ‘pwease’ typed out and sent by a grown-ass man?”
Sarah didn’t deny it, and I was sure I had a disturbed look on my face.Ick.
“Exactly,” Lionel said. “But while we’re talking about it, I think you should try getting on a dating app, Ms. Samaha. You’ve been single for almost two years now, and you’ve gone on like three dates.”
“No, thanks,” Sarah said. “The only dating app I plan on using is my calendar.”
“How are you ever going to meet anyone? You stayed in your pajamas all weekend and watched The Bachelor.”
“Food Network, actually,” she corrected. “And I’m just in a dry spell. But it’s not enough to get me on an app where I might accidentally get set up with a student.”
“Two years isn’t a dry spell. That’s a drought. The Native Americans are going to start doing rain dances around your lady garden.”
“Gross.” Sarah scrunched her face. “Can we talk about something else? Hadley, what’d you do this weekend?”
Aw, crap. She had shifted the hot seat over to me.
I didn’t want to confess I’d been hanging out with the guys, because I knew they’d turn it into something it wasn’t. Maybe I could skirt around the truth.
“A couple of my neighbors helped me get a new car on Saturday because my old one finally crapped out. Then we went to lunch on Sunday and walked around the city a bit.”
“Don’t you live in the faculty housing?” Lionel asked. “What neighbors did you go with?”